‘You!’ I cry.
The young Evelyn is wearing a modest, navy-blue dress with a crocheted cream collar. ‘Well, look at you! Your long wavy hair. You look like a young Veronica Lake.’
Evelyn dips her chin, in that cutely coy way she saves for compliments. ‘I was twelve years old when I had my first permanent wave. They doused your head in chemicals, stuck pin curls in you and then baked you to about two hundred degrees until you were nearly cremated.’
I chuckle.
‘I found these, too. They were among his things.’
The photo shows four young women, in evening dress, holding cocktail glasses. The photographer has caught them right as they’re bursting into laughter. Three of them are brash and busty. But it’s the girl on the left who has a gentle candour in her eyes that says she’s more interested in the photographer than the jokes. ‘Look how stunning you were, Evelyn!’ I say. She’s wearing a sleeveless, black shift dress and a leopard-print pillbox hat perched at a jaunty angle. Her thick, dark hair has been flipped at the ends, and around her wrist is a single strand of pearls.
‘It’s from the wedding, right?’
Evelyn nods. ‘Eddy took it. If only I could go back to that moment and feel that thrill again. I would give anything.’
‘Oh my! This is amazing! You look so dignified and regal! No wonder he couldn’t take his eyes off you, Evelyn. I can’t take my eyes off you!’
‘Oh! Silly!’ She passes me another one – of a sports team – and taps a small face in the back row.
‘Is that my dad?’ A hand flies to my mouth.
‘Yes. The date’s on the back. He was thirteen.’
The same beaming smile. The same dark, thick hair. Seeing him as a boy unleashes quiet heartbreak.
‘He wanted so badly to be a professional footballer, but he was needed at home, to earn the bacon.’
I brush away a stray tear. ‘My mum destroyed everything with his face on it. Even their wedding photos.’ Oddly, I think of Justin. I’m glad now that I didn’t make life difficult for him by making it hard for him to leave. Not only have I kept my dignity, but I’ve proven to myself that I’m better than my mother.
I can’t stop gazing at him. ‘I never, ever, expected to see my dad as a teenager.’ When I eventually pass the photo back to her, she kisses it, briefly, and smiles at it, coy and proud.
I wonder what his life had been like at home, what his mother and father were like. Because by moving me away, my mother had robbed me of grandparents, too. ‘We have to show him the pictures when he wakes up!’
One of Michael’s stash of articles said that even if we forget everything else, memories of our childhood linger like perennial ghosts, amorphous but never entirely stamped out. I take comfort and encouragement from this. In some ways, you can really only account for your life where your memories begin, and before that you exist somewhat at the behest of those who know you. A bit like dementia, only in reverse. The end of life and the beginning can be almost the same.
‘I want you to have it,’ Evelyn says. ‘He would want you to.’
‘I’ll take good care of it.’ I smile. ‘Now I have a photo of my dad! This makes me happier than you could ever know.’
‘And you’ll take lots more.’ She taps her temples and stares at a sleeping Eddy.
Back at the home, I open his window, and the room fills with the chirps of birds making a play for a feeder. Eddy stands right behind me looking out on to the gardens.
‘I like this view,’ I tell him. ‘I could stare at it all day. It’s so peaceful and green.’
‘In winter, the birds have nothing to eat. I think they want to go home, but they don’t know where home is,’ he surprises me by saying.
‘I think they quite like hanging out here in the summer,’ I tell him.
Evelyn is refilling his water jug in his en suite bathroom. I pull the small photo from my bag.
He walks over to his armchair and sits. I crouch beside him. ‘Do you recognise anyone in this picture?’ I ask him, gently.
At first, he doesn’t look, then when he does, he shakes his head.
‘You might not know this, but one of these boys grew up to be my dad.’ I gaze up at his face, pulsing with a restless optimism. ‘Do you know which one was my father, Eddy?’
His eyes go blankly to the photo again.
I sink. I’ve been too fired up since what happened in the gallery. ‘That’s okay.’ I squeeze his knee and try not to sound oppressively defeated. ‘You know what? I think I’ll tell you another time, when you’re a little less tired.’
‘How are your piano lessons?’ he asks, without skipping a beat.
I am standing up. The shock of it makes me lose balance slightly. Evelyn has now come to the bathroom door, and I hear the catch of her breath. ‘What did you just say?’ I ask.
His eyes are fastened on mine, so brightly. ‘You were taking piano lessons. You had your music all set out.’ His voice has a note of triumph about it.
‘Yes!’ I put both hands either side of his face and kiss him swiftly on his brow. ‘That’s amazing! You’re right! I was. You came to visit me. You stayed for dinner.’
‘I know I did,’ he says, seeming quite pleased with himself.
‘You recognise April!’ Evelyn comes over to us, breathless and sprightly like a bird.
‘Of course,’ he says, as though there is no possible reason why he shouldn’t. ‘You are my daughter.’ He looks at me. Then, to Evelyn, he says, ‘And you’re my wife.’
FORTY-THREE